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2015 Building , Resisting Porn Culture: Where To from Here University of Dayton, [email protected]

Follow this and additional works at: http://ecommons.udayton.edu/phl_fac_pub Part of the Other Feminist, , and Sexuality Studies Commons, Philosophy Commons, and the Women's Studies Commons eCommons Citation Whisnant, Rebecca, "Building Feminism, Resisting Porn Culture: Where To from Here" (2015). Philosophy Faculty Publications. 160. http://ecommons.udayton.edu/phl_fac_pub/160

This Book Chapter is brought to you for free and open access by the Department of Philosophy at eCommons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Philosophy Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of eCommons. For more information, please contact [email protected], [email protected]. Building feminism, resisting porn culture: where to from here?

Rebecca Whisnant

In chapter one, I wrote about some of the fundamental differences between and liberal or third wave feminism and, in particular, how these branches of feminism approach . I also wrote about the importance of radical feminism for recognising and resisting oppression. In this chapter, I pick up these threads again and discuss the key elements that radical feminism can contribute to the rebuilding of a powerful movement for women's liberation in the era of porn culture. First things first, we need more people, more of the time, out there presenting radical feminist critique. I happen to know, for instance, that many bright and well-intentioned young people are toeing the third wave, sexual libertarian line because it's all they've been taught in their women's studies classes. And, of course, many people outside the academy have very little exposure to feminist critiques of virtually anything. So part of this is a sheer labour problem. We need more bodies and more voices. But not only do we need more people doing and saying the same things, I think that we also need to do and say some different things, or at least some additional things. As porn culture becomes ever more pervasive and soul-destroying, and as it starts to directly affect more people's lives in ways they're aware of, many people are looking for a way out. The problem is that they don't see any alternative, and much of what they're told is different and alternative really isn't. For instance, the most obvious cultural and political force that presents itself as an alternative - indeed, is often seen as the only The Limitsof LiberalFeminism 201 200 FreedomFallacy

and rebellion against said values by buying a stripper pole and learning alternative - to porn culture is a religious, predominantly Christian, social . Now that's no good for women, and part of the to lap dance. 'What? You say that doesn't seem like authentic femal.e sexuality or sexual liberation to you? What are you, a right-wing, "anti- appeal of third wave, pro-porn politics resides in its apparent rebellion against such conservatism. This leads me to my first suggestion sex" prude?' about how to frame our critique of porn culture: namely by showing This ~urface conflict in sexual ideology between right and left that - contrary to popular belief - conservative and pornographic serves male power by masking a deeper agreement. For both camps, ideologies of sex and gender are very nearly synonymous, the surface after all it is an article of faith that sex makes women dirty, cheap, differences between the two obscuring their fundamental unity. As less valuable, that being fucked literally degrades women and girls. radical feminists have long observed, male sexual ownership and Furthermore, in both camps, women and girls are systematically made control of women is a matter of fundamental agreement between to suffer for having sex. In the world of pornography, the sex itself the male-defined political right and the almost equally male-defined _ aggressive, hostile, humiliating - is the punishment, the mechanism political left. The right typically supports the private male ownership by which men viscerally experience their manhood by putting wo~en g of women one at a time, as wives and daughters, localised in the in our place. In the world of 'traditional family values' the su.ffertn home and the 'traditional family'; whereas the left too often defends of shame, stigma, unwanted pregnancy (or at least the fear of It), and men's collective sexual ownership of women outside the home, in the forced childbirth is a woman's just punishment for having had sex 'public domain', including in pornography and . To reject that she shouldn't have had. And in both worlds we hear the constant both forms of male sexual ownership, as radical feminis ts do, is thus refrain _ sometimes whispered, sometimes shouted - 'Bitch. Slut. to commit the ultimate heresy. Dirty whore. You're getting what you deserve.' As Andrea Dworkin once put it: 'Pretending to argue, they collude. And if one don't get Yet only such principled rejection can effectively challenge the , \ sexual abuse and commodification of women and girls both inside you, the other will. and outside the 'traditional family'. Until we find ways to communicate As daunting as this convergence is, it also suggests a certain the linked dangers of both forms of male control, the fear of one hermeneutic of feminist resistance, one that, happily, is pretty easy to form will continue to send women and girls directly into the lap of communicate. People who care about justice and who want a way out the other. The conservatives say to us: of porn culture need to act and think in ways that won't m~ke either bunch of woman-haters happy. If you're doing and saytng things that Hey, ladies, don't like what you see in pornography? Ugly, the religious right and the libertarian left both really hate, then you're isn't it? You say you don't want that to happen to you, or for men to think of you like that? Well, then, be good girls and on the right track! So that's my fiist suggestion. keep your legs closed. Be abstinent until marriage, and then My second suggestion is that we connect our critique of. por~o- God says your husband has to honour and value you and graphy and porn culture to a broader critique of the commodlfica~on protect you from other men. (You just have to obey him). of everyday life and, in so doing, promote a non-marketised conception of freedom. Now that's a mouthful, I know. To start illustrating it, I Meanwhile, women and girls who recognise the patriarchal trap of want to share with you a couple of anecdotes from my recent trip 'traditional familyvalues' are urged to demonstrate their independence The Limits of Liberal Feminism 203 202 Freedom Fallacy to a college which shall remain nameless, but which is known both part of ; they want to be free and open with their sexuality. for its stellar academics and for its progressive politics. I'll call it 'Alt. So that's why they want to make and use pornography.' There's a sweet kind of humour here: every generation thinks it invented sex. But College'. more relevant, for our purposes, there are two massive assumptions Overall, my visit to Alt. College was wonderful: I visited some underlying'this young woman's comment, both of which we need to classes and gave an anti-pornography slideshow in the evening to a challenge whenever we see an opening to do so. large and receptive audience. During the question and answer period The first assumption is that, for some experience or activity to that followed, a young woman raised her hand. Clearly troubled by be important, real, and considerable, it must be made into an image: what she had heard and seen, she asked: 'Well, what if we all just take a picture, roll video, turn on the webcam. As is fond get together and tell the porn industry that this isn't what we want- of pointing out, we live in an image-based culture. Everything has to that we want something more complex, more diverse, less hateful and be made into an image, and we derive our conception of who and one-dimensional? Wouldn't they have to change their ways and give what we are largely from the images that surround us. But here is a us what we want?' question: when you are doing something - virtually anything - are you There are many assumptions lurking in this query that we would more or less free in doing it when you know someone is watching? do well to challenge, but what I want to highlight is the faith that's What if they're taking pictures? What if they're going to show those being shown in the wonders of the capitalist marketplace. To this pictures to a whole bunch of people you don't even know? (Are you very bright, progressive, feminist young woman, here in this bastion feeling free yet?) For instance, do you dance crazier and more freely of liberal-to-radical politics, it seemed plausible to think that - in this when you're by yourself in your bedroom, or out at the nightclub connection at least- the market will solve all of our problems. Now in when your image is being projected on the big screen? making this assumption, there is something important that she fails to The second assumption underlying this young woman's comment understand, namely that the cultural products of mega-corporations is that, for some experience or activity to be important, real, and are much more like advertising than they are like art. When powerful considerable, it must be made into a commodity. But here is another and profit-hungry entities go hunting for market share at any cost, question: when you put some activity into the marketplace - that is,you what those entities will produce and sell is whatever gets the most decide to sell it instead of just doing it - does that make you more or people in the gut the fastest and makes them want more of that now. less free in doing it? For instance, suppose you like to make music. Up This will never be equality. It will never be complexity. It will never be until now it's been a hobby, something you do in your spare time, but anything thoughtful or meaningful or reflective. Not ever. now you've decided that you want to get signed with a major label. All Let me share one more anecdote from Alt. College that will help of a sudden you're not free to make any old kind of music you want, me go a bit deeper with this idea. That afternoon, I had visited the are you? Now it's: 'What do they think they can sell? What's in vogue gender studies senior seminar course to talk with the students about this week, and are you it, and if not, can they make you into it?' feminist politics and pornography. At one point in the discussion, a So we face a bizarre phenomenon in many discussions of y~ung woman raised her hand, and said: 'Well, these days things are pornography, in that it's only with respect to sex that many otherwise different. People in my generation want sexuality to be an important 204 Freedom Fallacy The Limits of Liberal Feminism 205

progressive and leftist people assume that putting something into have long emphasis ed, constructs our sexuality capitalist marketplace makes it more free (or is evidence that one is free very profoundly, and even the most enlightened among us are not in doing it). We need to find ways to challenge the naive and regressive immune to that construction. But the construction, for most people conceptions of freedom as the freedom to enter the marketplace at least, does not go 'all the way down'. Despite everything, many and/ or to choose among the options that the marketplace offers people do have experiences of mutual and egalitarian sexuality - or at us. We need to suggest to people that - in many everyday contexts, least hints or glimmers of it - and that's really good news. We need to but perhaps especially for the most intimate and potentially creative' encourage people to tap into these experiences, hints, and glimmers, activities of our lives, like sex and sexuality - real freedom in that to remember what they know from their own lives: that no pimp or activity means neither selling it nor letting somebody with a profit corporation sold to them or ever could, and to want more of it. motive tell us what it is supposed to look and feel like. Third and finally, as we continue to tell people what sexual freedom My final suggestion is one that's been made before, and that is that isn't, we should also encourage them to think deeply and creatively we need a vision of alternatives. The makers of ostensibly-feminist about what it is. What would real sexual freedom look and feel like, porn claim to be providing such a vision, and that's why their message the kind that everyone can have, instead of the kind that amounts to is appealing to many: we sense a need for alternatives, and that need freedom for some at others' expense? We need to richly imagine, and is real, but more commodified images isn't it. But it is true that our encourage others to richly imagine, another world: one in which no side needs to be more than just, as Dworkin once aptly put it: 'the woman or girl is ever called 'slut', 'prude', 'bitch', 'cunt', or '';

morbid side of the women's movement'. 2 There's something to that, in which no woman, man, or child ever has to fear rape or suffer inevitably, and rightly so: there is no way to face down the industries its damage to their spirits; in which men do not control their own of sexual exploitation without confronting some very ugly realities. We and other men's behaviour by the threat of being seen and treated must not flinch from that task, and we must continue to find ways to as women; and in which love and connection is not reduced help others face those realities without dying inside. But we can't just to a pornographic fetish for men. In this world, every woman and be 'Atrocities"R"Us'. We also have to give people (including ourselves) girl sees her own body as beautiful, no man or boy is made to see his some inspiration and some room to move. This is a tall order but I'm as a weapon, and people take part in sexual activity only when (and going to provide here three quick ideas for moving in this direction. only because) they expect to enjoy it and to be honoured and fulfilled First, note the connection to my point about withdrawing from the therein. It can be painful to think in this way, because we become market. To open up the space for new thinking and experimentation, more acutely aware of just how far away we are from this better we need to detox, to get out of the path of porn culture's cynical, world. But the third wave has one thing right: desire can be, or can manipulative, and hateful messages. To start thinking our own thoughts become, a form of power. We need to use the power of our desire and dreaming our own dreams, first we have to get away from the for this world - our desire to bring it into being for ourselves and for bastards who are shouting at us through megaphones. Second, we our children and our grandchildren - to unite us and to animate our need to draw on our own experiences of love and sex as joy and thinking and strategising about how to take our culture back from the communion (and encourage others to draw on theirs). As radical pornographers. 236 Freedom Fallacy

and Poliry (princeton University Press, 1997).

19 C Delphy and D Leonard, Familiar Exploitation: A New .Analysis of Marriage in Contemporary WeJtern Societies (polity Press, 1992).

20 Pateman, above n 6.

21 Zoe Holman, 'Why are my feminist friends still taking their husband's surnames?', (online), 10 January 2014, .

22 Janeen Baxter, 'To Marry or Not to Marry: Marital Status and the Household Division of Labour' (2005) 26 Journal of FamilY Issues 300; J aneen Baxter et al, 'Pathways into Marriage: Cohabitation and the Domestic Division of Labour' (2010) 31 Journal of FamilY Issues 1507; B Shelton and D John, 'Does Marital Status Make a Difference? Housework Among Married and Cohabiting Men and Women' (1993) 14 Journal of FamilY Issues 40l. z.'W Brown and S Trost, 'Life Transitions and Changing Physical Activity Patterns in Young Women' (2003) 25 .American Journal of Preventive Medicine 140.

24 Baxter, 'To Marry or Not to Marry', above n 22.

25 , Heterosexuality in Question (Sage, 1999); , The Lesbian Heresy: A Feminist Perspeaive on the Lesbian (Spinifex, 1993).

Building feminism, resisting porn culture: where to from here? &becca Whisnant

1 Andrea Dworkin, 'Women in the Public Domain: Sexual Harassment and Date Rape' in Life and Death: Unapologetic Writings on the ConfillUing War Against Women (Free Press, 1997)199.

2 Andrea Dworkin, 'Feminism: An Agenda' in Letters From a !Par Zone (Lawrence Hill Books, 1993) 133.